The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-01-26
CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIII.
Tn June, John Earring turned his face
toward the West, climbing the glim-
mering craft-crowded Hudson by boat,
and ever with its aforementioned prog
rcss feasting his eyes upon the palace
crowned activities. What regal places!
What paradises up where the emerald
sweeps turned back against the violet
gulf of ether! He felt it glorious; yet
often his eyes closed heavily, and with
sigh he saw again the innumerable
huts and holes of hunger that festered
in the by-ways and corners of the huge
town he had left behind.
At length he left the water for the
rail, and making for the West swerved
toward the South, and with kind of
mixed delight and misgiying within,
got down from the train at Cincinna-
ii, as he had months before. Then he
had felt sense of contamination, u
sorrow wet with polluted blood, which
still burned often across him. dying
away into an unspcakable pity for
Maun's unhallowed end. Something of
thehorror ofthose lastdaysin Openstone
had been loosened from him, or it were
much as if the dried blood and tears
upon his memory had been half worn
Off by the thousands of new scenes and
faces that had glanced along his con-
seriousness during these months of wan
dering. But still by times his fingers
would clinch as he threw it from him
with shudder, and now when he stood
in Celeste's city even her hallowed
presence in that nightmare period of
his life brought it rushing over him.
and for moment the thousand mov-
ing figures about him were blurred as
i'll a mist, and only the dead girl lying
in the water under the hill at Open
stone seemed clear. Yet he shivered
at thought of her; she that had been
vile! Could he ever forgive that? Even
had he loved her wholly it had only
been the deadlier! Yet she was inno-
cent, innocent through ignorance, he
thought. All, what inexpressible treat
Inent had been portioned out to her!
Into what an abyss had she been
tripped, and what weak and suffering
lights were words wherewith to de-
scend into the cavern of her wrong
and illuminc its hideousness!
At length, drawing heedlessly away
from the city's heart, he came into
quieter parts, but stepped in retrospect
tion he noticed it but little. He had
wandered so much about strange
streets in these late months that he had
come, when his thoughts were turned
backward or inward, to regard Ell
vIroning objects little more than if he
were in room. So he walked on half
thinking that he should presently 60 to
some hotel, and straightway falling
again into reverie; the slumbcrous
eyes of Maun, the black feverish lights
under the book-keeper's brow and the
sky-like luminous orbs of Celeste,
seemed CHANGING about the mental
plummets with which he was straining
to measure how much or little he had
cared in truth for the lost lamented
girl, when suddenly Celeste came into
the street farther up the residence-cov-
cred bluff and started down toward
him. Her limping figure looked slen-
der and fair against the background of
sky, and when she saw John farling a
sudden light whtened across her face,
her hands lifted little as from a thrill
through the heart and she stopped.
He did not see her, and she turned as
If to 60 back. then she went on, with
her exquisite cheeks and chin flushing
an almost invisible pink, and paused
when she met him.
When the young man glanced up,
aud from seeing the same eyes within
him behcld the living ones dilating
with light before him, he started with
Il sort of frightened cry, but quickly
put out his hand and grasped her ex-
tended one
You are a long way from Open
stone, Mr.. Earring! | am glad to see
you," she said, with her frank smile
and silvery voice.
All, there was the voice which had
followed him for years! and his
thoughts ran about after words for a
moment confusedly; then he recovered
himself and said, with the suddenly
stirred blood still mantling his face:
''Ihank you; yes, | come to be sick
ened with the place; some very terrible
things having occurred-Oh, yes, you
remember them. yes; the last time I
saw you you were standing by-by-
Maun's grave singingw Even in his
lack of camness he noticed the quick
wave of feeling that swept across her
face.
"Yes, l remember it," she said, her
eyes falling with family wlthered ex-
preston as if in memory of a great
pain or struggle. 1T was the saddest,
hardest thing | ever knew. | do not
think the death of my own mother
touched ME more" Then she lifted
her eyes to his again with something
not unlike the tender, plying, anxious
look of a child reading its sick parents
face. "You are not so we'll since then;
does it not go away from youy' she